Has your opinion of politics, political parties changed from being on DU?

Mine has, in a lot of hard to define ways. I realize I am by no means alone in my frustration with bush, the election process, the 2000 fiasco, redistricting in Texas and endless other topics. I've also seen the dissatisfaction among our party in the direction it should take each step of the way, from who the nominee should have been, to who should head the DNC, to what way the party should react now to regroup for the future. I don't know if it is fair to compare DU users to the Democratic party overall, but if so I see great diversity, but also division within. More so than I had imagined before coming here to DU. At times I am comforted by DU, seeing I am not alone in my viewpoints; other times, discouraged when I seem to be the only one to care about an issue. I am less naive about certain issues and the political process, but with the greater knowledge comes the problem of getting so worked up over things I can't sleep at night. I'm rambling now. :)

How has DU changed your views? Or has it?

I've always been liberal, moderately so until the last 5 years. What turned me into what I call a "flaming" liberal is my conversion from pro-death penalty to anti-death penalty. Living in Illinois, center of the nation when it comes to evaluating capital punishment, I had the chance to see why it was not a deterrent and the iniquities involved. But back to the point, DU hasn't changed me, more, it has reaffirmed everything I believe in, and in some ways, inspired me to fight harder for what I believe.

Been around too long for a few years on DU to have an effect.

A lot of things here reinforce what I already believe, and what I don't agree with, well nobody's been able to change my mind.

Learn a lot of good stuff here, though.

Like TreasonousBastard said I've learned a lot here and am grateful for all I've learned. I joined DU to be with like-minded folks. A lot I already knew just from my own research. :) Thanks to the internet and other political movies.

It started at the tail end of Clinton - I realized that here was a democrat president who was mostly continuing the policies espoused by the GOP as begun under Reagan, we had a tech bubble that nobody in the giddy press questioned to the point that people thought it was a "recession-proof new economy", despite soaring personal debts and bankruptcy rates (yes, even in the halcyon Clinton years!). And yet, in spite of his right-leaning tendencies, we had this ultra-right-wing witch hunt going on, and I realized I was no longer the moderate liberal I used to be - for right-wing America, I was becoming a radical. The appointment of Bush in 2000 and the emergence of Fox News, etc, 9-11 and the "war on terror" was what made me realized that as a nation we had gone through the looking glass, and that insanity as a worldview had become the norm.

DU has been nothing more than a refuge from the right-wing vomit that permeates public discourse in this country. And a certain amount of it is even tolerated here, unfortunately...

Before I came to DU I thought that the Republicans and Democrats had different ideologies.

I now believe that both parties exist solely to help each other raise money.

The Republicans raise money by using the Democrats to frighten people.

The Democrats raise money by using the Republicans to frighten people.

And then both parties take all our money and do whatever the corporations tell them to do, because that's where the REALLY big money is.

Have you ever noticed that when DU has a fundraiser, they don't use a positive image of what the Democratic Party is doing for us to inspire us to donate, but instead use a picture of Duhbya to frighten us into donating?

Maybe next time they'll use a picture of Barbara Boxer and her roses. While it might not raise as much money as scare tactics do, it could give the Democrats a positive image for a change.